


help me (get away from myself, become somebody else)

by merwinist



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Peter Parker is Stubborn, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has Self-Esteem Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Whump, Whump, h/c, originally a tumblr prompt, peter parker refuses to let tony push him away, tony stark deserves more nice things than he thinks he does
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-06 06:30:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21222116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merwinist/pseuds/merwinist
Summary: Tony Stark is used to being abandoned, discarded, cast aside. He doesn't think he'll survive it coming from Peter, so he tries to get ahead of the curve.Peter is not impressed.





	help me (get away from myself, become somebody else)

**Author's Note:**

> Theme song for this fic is Closer by Nine Inch Nails

It’s been six months. Tony’s average relationship that’s more than just fucking usually starts to crumble around this point, so every morning finds Tony wondering if today’s going to be the day Peter decides Tony’s just too much to deal with. Each day it doesn’t happen only ratchets up the tension in his spine; what’s the kid waiting for? It’s not like Tony expects him to stick around forever, and it shows in their intimacy. What had started out as soft and loving sex has slowly devolved into animalistic fucking, Tony trying to get under Peter’s skin in the only way he knows, trying to burrow too deep to be evicted even as he feels himself being dragged down into the morass that is his flawed existence. Peter’s the closest he’s ever been to God, and that’s why he knows it can’t last. He’s already smeared his filthy, blood covered hands all over the sweetest, purest person known to man.  
  
There’s no happy ending for people like Tony Stark, he’s known that for what seems like eons, multiple lives passing in blurs of failure and wrecked dreams. Unfortunately, Peter seems a little slow on the uptake and Tony’s starting to become exhausted with the waiting. Self-preservation is all well and good, but in Tony it finds its outlet as self-sabotage. He can’t imagine himself being allowed nice things, so he shatters them and then feels vindicated when the shards make him bleed.  
  
Stark men are made of iron, but Tony’s always felt more like those Japanese tea pots held together with gold plating, kept on pedestals because they’ll just fall apart again. Broken and useless for anything other than decoration. It’s just another way he’s disappointed Howard, the man whose voice never really leaves the back of his mind, telling him he’s not trying hard enough, he’s no good. He’ll never accomplish anything worthwhile.  
  
For a long time Iron Man had helped silence that voice. Then Ultron happened, and Tony realized Iron Man had just been a long journey towards another failure and it had returned with a vengeance. People don’t need _him_, they just want what he has.   
  
Peter’s different, of course, and so was Pepper, but not so different as to completely change who Tony Stark is, which, at the end of the day, is a poison. Every time Tony touches Peter he feels like he’s leeching more and more of the light out of him.  
  
That’s why he starts picking fights, deliberately misinterpreting things Peter says or does. He’s saving Peter, really, but he’s also too selfish to just end it cleanly. He has to make Peter hate him, see him for what he really is, so that he knows just how lucky he is to have escaped the pull of the black hole that he is. So that he doesn’t try to come back -- because Tony knows he’d take what was offered greedily, knows he could so easily suck everything from Peter like some sort of human dementor. Knows he’d violate and desecrate every inch of who Peter Parker is if allowed the opportunity.  
  
It all comes to a head on a Friday night, which is a relief, really, because it means he can spend the whole weekend blackout drunk before being expected to scrape himself back together. Whiskey is his gold plating, after all; that and a healthy dose of bitter resignation. He knows he’s been pushing Peter away but there’s still a tiny part of him crying out, hoping Peter will push back. That’s the selfishness talking, and Tony does his best to shove it deep into the recesses of whatever soul he’s got left. He’s got to keep Peter safe, can’t do to Peter what he did to Pepper.  
  
There’s shouting, and tears, but at least this time his heart is being ripped out on his own terms. He’s not paralyzed on the floor while Obie yanks it out with a satisfied smirk. He’s not barely holding it together as Pepper cries about how he’s just too much for her to handle, reminding him he’s been a burden his whole life. No, he’s standing in the kitchen of the penthouse, holding his composure together as he spreads some fancy mustard he doesn’t care about on a sandwich that will taste like ashes.  
  
“I’m just saying, Peter, I think this was a mistake.”  
  
He can’t meet Peter’s eyes. If there’s anything he knows, it’s that his eyes will show that screaming voice he can’t seem to keep down, and he doesn’t have any sunglasses at the moment. An oversight on his part, he’ll have to remember -- but, no. He won’t put anyone else in a position to be wrecked by him. Pete’s it, he’s the last straw. Tony will finally learn his lesson and stop thinking he could ever make someone happy.  
  
The wobble in Peter’s voice feels like an icepick to the chest; worse than palladium poisoning, worse than a shield slamming down. “That’s bullshit, Tony,” he tries to scoff, but it’s too wet to truly come across as firm. “Look me in the eye and tell me I don’t make you happy. That you don’t love me.”  
  
Tony throws his knife in the sink, the clatter sharp and final. “It’s naive to assume that love is always enough, kid. It’s Disney fairy tale garbage.” He struggles to inject venom into what has evolved from a simple epithet to an endearment, but Tony’s always been good at twisting things to suit his purpose.  
  
“Don’t you dare,” Peter reprimands. “I can see what’s happening here, Tony, and I know the voice in your head tells you I’m some stupid kid who’s going to get bored one day, but I’m not! I haven’t been a child since before we met, no matter how old I may be, and I know what I want. I want _you_. Not Iron Man, not the heir to Stark Industries, just you: Tony, neuroses and all.” He wants to believe that, but he has empirical evidence that nobody wants ‘just Tony.’ His fingers clutch the sink’s frame as Peter rounds the counter between them, coming up behind him and standing in his bubble. It would be so easy to lean back, apologize, laugh all of this off, and continue down this road to the bloody end.   
  
Tony Stark has never taken the easy way out.  
  
He’s severely underestimated Peter’s stubborn streak, though. Before he can muster a response that’s relevant without being a lie, arms are caging him on either side and Peter’s forehead is resting in the curve of his neck. “I know your past. I know it’s hard for you to trust, and so I’m trying really hard not to be hurt by your lack of faith in me. In my love.” He pulls in a deep breath while Tony tries to keep the flinch in his mind from reverberating through his body. He doesn’t think he’s successful, since one of Peter’s hands grips his hip, a thumb slipping under his shirt and rubbing small circles on sensitive skin.   
  
“All I want is for you to give me a chance. Stop comparing me to all the other people you know, and let me prove to you that they were wrong. Let me spend every day showing you what I think you deserve.” Goosebumps spread down his spine with a soft brush of Peter’s lips behind his ear. “I don’t want to hurt you, and I won’t watch you martyr yourself on a flawed premise.”  
  
And all of a sudden, Tony is just tired. He’s fucking exhausted. Almost forty years of life crash down, bowing his shoulders forward, and for once Tony just. Wants. To. Stop. Fighting. He’s drained, there’s nothing left in the tank. Howard’s disdain, Maria’s distance, Obie’s betrayal, Pepper’s abandonment, he’s done with it all. His voice is raspy and raw when he finally musters a reply. “You’ll see, pet. I’m the common factor; I’m hard to love and easy to leave. And I just -- I just want to believe you so badly that I know I can’t. I don’t get good things, I ruin them.”  
  
Peter is undeterred, his hold on Tony tightening in response to the nickname. “Let yourself have this, Tony. I’m offering you everything I am, with the full knowledge of who you are -- and the fact that you need therapy like _whoa_. I’ve known you for going on six years now; I’ve seen it all. There is _nothing_ in you that I don’t love, that I can’t handle. I just need you to trust me, and to give yourself some slack.” His free arm wraps around Tony’s chest, under his arms, and the other moves from his hip to his hair, running through it in slow, soothing motions.   
  
Something in Tony cracks, splits him down the middle, and for the first time in probably a decade he’s crying with no control over it. “I just -- I can’t --” His shoulders are shaking and his knees are weak and it’s only Peter and his super-strength holding him against his chest that keeps the engineer from crumpling like a poor build. “I can’t lose you, too, Pete. It will actually kill me, I can’t do it, I’ll ruin you.”  
  
Peter’s chest rumbles as he rocks them slightly, a soft shushing blowing air against Tony’s cheek. “I’m not going anywhere, and I’m not that easy to ruin. I’m motherfuckin’ Spiderman!” A soggy laugh huffs out of Tony’s lungs without his say, but really that seems par for the night’s course.  
  
“I’m sorry, Pete, I’m so sorry.” He turns around in his boyfriend’s arms and stretches up on tiptoes to wrap his arms around Peter’s neck, hiding his face in the crook of his neck. Warm hands in his hair and on his back help ease the shudders still running through him; he doesn’t resist when he’s tugged up into deceptively skinny arms and carried to the couch, just wraps his legs around Peter’s hips and tries to push down the mortification creeping in.  
  
“It’s alright, darling, I know. I get it. It’s hard to accept more love than you think you deserve.” A blanket is tucked around them. Tony feels like the world can’t reach him, here. He’s safe, he can let down his walls. “I’m going to spend the rest of your life proving to you that you _do_ deserve everything I have to give.”   
  
He mumbles something, too exhausted to properly form words, wrung out and left to drip dry. He might not deserve Peter, he muses as consciousness falls away, but he’s selfish enough to accept Peter’s stubborn insistence with minimal fuss. He’ll learn, eventually. Or he won’t and he really will make Tony the happiest man in the world. That’s a dilemma for the future, when the fight in Tony hasn’t been dimmed to a flicker.


End file.
